Paul's Extreme Sound Stretch - <AUTHOR> http://hypermammut.sourceforge.net/paulstretch/ <comment><USER2> Arguably what brought PaulStretch into the public eye was this 800% slow-down of "U Smile" that made Justin Beiber sound like Sigur Ros [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bidHnEekXpE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bidHnEekXpE)

Interview with the creator: [http://www.ew.com/article/2010/08/18/justin- bieber-u-smile-s...](http://www.ew.com/article/2010/08/18/justin-bieber-u- smile-slow)

</comment><comment><USER3> The author's homepage lists a bunch of interesting things where the software has been used and mentioned[1]. Personally I found it quite fitting on the Dredd 3D soundtrack on a song that it plays when people are using a drug called Slo-Mo, which slows the user's perception of time to 1% of normal.

[1] [http://www.paulnasca.com/open-source-projects#TOC-Paul-s- Ext...](http://www.paulnasca.com/open-source-projects#TOC-Paul-s-Extreme- Sound-Stretch)

</comment><comment><USER4> Time-stretching audio algorithms are really fun.

Paulstrech algo: [http://www.paulnasca.com/algorithms-created-by-me#TOC- PaulSt...](http://www.paulnasca.com/algorithms-created-by-me#TOC-PaulStretch- extreme-sound-stretching-algorithm)

Ableton live has similar algorithms built in for audio time stretching, but Paulstrech goes a step further and integrates a large spacey reverb that smooths out the abrasiveness of the low resolution playback at extreme modifications.

</comment><comment> david-given You can't mention PaulStretch without linking to Justin Biebier's totally amazing ambient orchestral piece, U Smile:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QspuCt1FM9M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QspuCt1FM9M)

I'm not even kidding. It's superb. Put it on, turn the lights out, imagine yourself on an alien beach, and feel the stress drift away...

</comment><comment><USER5> For a sample work created by Paul's Sound Stretch, check out The Ambient Dishwasher, by low light mixes:

[https://www.mixcloud.com/lowlight/the-ambient- dishwasher/](https://www.mixcloud.com/lowlight/the-ambient-dishwasher/)

<comment><USER6> That's easily the most beautiful thing I've ever heard, just barely edging out the paulstretch'd U Smile.

<comment><USER7> Check out Vangelis, Dead Can Dance, old-school Enya (The Celts soundtrack comes to mind), if you liked this.

<comment><USER6> I already have almost-full discographies of all except for Dead Can Dance (who I hadn't heard of before). Thanks for the tip!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If you're curious here's some stuff I did a few years ago using it:

[https://soundcloud.com/medicinewheel](https://soundcloud.com/medicinewheel)

The interest thing about this app is that it allows you to pull material from almost anywhere and make it sonically interesting. The first track I made was sourced from 2 seconds of Love is a Battlefield and a few seconds from an anti-depressant commercial. The fun part of this app is trying to turn the most mundane sounds into something interesting.

</comment><comment><USER9> This is very cool, I'll need to spend some time playing with it.

I used abuse an old Powerbook's CPU by using Logic's Time Machine at the maxium settings and clicking through the all the warnings that it might harm the processor, and repeat several times. I made a whole album doing that: [https://josephpost.bandcamp.com/](https://josephpost.bandcamp.com/)

</comment><comment><USER10> I loved what this software package did for Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights (36 minutes long, so grab a seat): [http://youtu.be/fsXhtJ9BTJA](http://youtu.be/fsXhtJ9BTJA)

For reference, this is the original version: [http://youtu.be/BW3gKKiTvjs](http://youtu.be/BW3gKKiTvjs)

</comment><comment><USER11> Wow -- this[0] really reminds me of this[1].

[0] [http://hypermammut.sourceforge.net/paulstretch/20x.ogg](http://hypermammut.sourceforge.net/paulstretch/20x.ogg)

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpMNXEY_tio](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpMNXEY_tio)

</comment><comment><USER12> Damn, I ran DEVO's "Mongoloid" through that and got a Godspeed You! Black Emperor song.

</comment><comment><USER13> Paulstretch is now included as an effect in Audacity.</comment>


Show HN: Push your logic beyond the limits (browser game) - <AUTHOR> http://treksit.com/?logicgames <comment><AUTHOR> 20 puzzles in total.</comment>


Ask HN: Review my app, Yar Matey - <AUTHOR> http://yarmatey.com

<comment><AUTHOR> I came up with the idea for Yar Matey last fall when applying for housing at UIUC. Many incoming Freshmen peruse Facebook groups looking for roommates in order to avoid being randomly assigned one by the university. I found paging through Facebook discussion boards to be horribly inefficient and envisioned an app that combined Facebook's omnipresence with focused functionality to aid in searching for roommates.

Yar Matey is a pirate-themed site where college students can find potential roommates. Built with Facebook Connect, the user experience is modeled around how students typically look for roommates on Facebook — select your school, fill out an easy survey, then look for roommates.

I built the site in about a week.</comment>


Ask HN: Where did the MoveLoot submission go? - <AUTHOR> A (negative) MoveLoot (YC W14) article reporting its demise is nowhere to be found despite ostensibly having sufficient numbers (9 points & 3 comments in 25 minutes) to be on the front page. I'm not even that cynical but seems curious. Are submissions like this "spikeable"?<p>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12005354 <comment><USER2> Users flagged it. I don't know why, but will look at the data. (Edit: I asked one user and he reported that it was a misclick.)

Obviously (<\-- or should be) no moderator touched the post. I've turned off the flags and rolled back the clock on the story so that it appears on the front page.

If we had known about this sooner we could have fixed it without having to roll back the clock. I wish people would follow the HN guideline that asks them to email email@example.com about things like this instead of posting them on HN, where the odds are we'll never see them.

</comment><comment><USER3> Seems as though the story has been spiked. Kind of disappointing from YC, considering they promote learning from failure.

<comment><USER2> Why do you assume that? No one at YC touched that post or probably even saw it; I certainly didn't.

It's the #1 policy of Hacker News moderation not to censor stories because they happen to be negative about YC or YC startups. We moderate such posts less, not more, than we otherwise would. This is literally the first thing pg explained to me when I started working on HN, and I think he did it before I even had a chance to grab a chair.

<comment><USER3> It just seemed odd that a story with 12 upvotes and 4 comments couldn't be found in the top 200 within 2 hours of posting. I see now it's made it to the front page. I'm assuming maybe this had to do with too many ppl posting the article or the specific user who posted or some kind of sandbox period.</comment></comment></comment>


Geode from iCache (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1404403369/geode-from-icache?ref=live <comment><AUTHOR> Compared to Coin, the Geode project had a similar vision albeit with greater aspirations. Here is an article about the aftermath: [http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20130331/PC05/13033992...](http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20130331/PC05/130339925/what- happened-to-icache&source=RSS).

<comment><USER2> their card looks better (chip access), but the whole case thing doesn't make sense, It looks massive in the picture. My initial reaction with coin was that its counter intuitive, NFC or just mobile (square/paypal) are clearly the future. However, the coin card seems like a brilliant move now, they're entering the market through the path where everyone is familiar with the form factor and the technology isn't overwhelming.

<comment><USER3> NFC is clearly not the future.

Square/PayPal (also not the future with their current products) are not incompatible wit Coin. In fact, Coin fits well into the current ecosystem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If I understand this correctly, wouldn't the following steps effectively mimic this technology?

1\. Get Paypal.

2\. Verify Paypal Account.

3\. Get Paypal Debit Card.

4\. Setup several CCs in Paypal.

5\. Maintain $0 balance in Paypal.

6\. Setup backup source of funding for Debit Card.

7\. Make an app that simply logs into Paypal to set the backup source of funding to another card at the touch of a button.

8\. Get an NFC sticker and put it on the Paypal debit card.

This would allow you to carry 1 card but use any of your cards and, as well, help you keep track of your card's physical proximity with an NFC enabled device. Please let me know if I am grossly misunderstanding or missing something!

<comment><USER5> The problem is that the MID/MCC of the store you shop at won't be passed- through to your real credit card (as PayPal's the one charging that card, not the store). You wouldn't get category-specific rewards (5% on groceries, 3% on gas, etc), which is one reason people carry multiple cards on them in the first place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I got one of these, it was brutal.

Switching cards was something like a 30 second process, which meant that instead of taking a card out, you had to open up the app, wait for it to load, wait an extra 10 seconds for it to connect to the Geode, then use the painfully-slow app. All to not carry a card in your wallet.

And on top of it - the two times I tried it at restaurants the card itself didn't work.

</comment><comment><USER7> Here's the deal: Kickstarter projects that depend on a specific form factor of the iPhone _will fail_. If they actually manage to ship, they're inevitably going to take longer to ship than they intend to, and—by the time they do—Apple will have released a new device that:

* has a new connector

* has a new form factor

* or, who the hell knows...

...that renders the Kickstarter project's goal irrelevant or unusable.

</comment><comment><USER8> I am surprised no one has mentioned Loop yet, it is a step in the right direction regarding Mobile Wallets: kickstarter.com/projects/loop/pay-with- loop

<comment><USER9> That's badass, but seems tricky at a sit-down restaurant-- I wouldn't want to have to give my phone to the waiter and explain to him how to use it. Also wonder if this works with the square dongle.

<comment><USER10> Exactly. It's also quite ugly and now bulking up your keychain. Coin fits into my money clip and (theoretically) can be handed to others to use.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I got one of these. It was so so so bad. I got sent a replacement just in case mine was faulty and it was just as broken but in different ways. The quality control seemed poor at the very least. I hope coin succeeds here and manages to come out with a v2 with a cheap that can be programmed (with bank support, obviously)

<comment><USER11> s/cheap/chip

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> There's also [http://getprotean.com/](http://getprotean.com/).

</comment><comment><USER13> What's the rest of the story, since the funding went well (how did they fail)?

<comment><USER14> [http://www.zdnet.com/icache-geodes-spectacular-crash-and- bur...](http://www.zdnet.com/icache-geodes-spectacular-crash-and- burn-7000014801/)

tl;dr: Quality(?) issues; then iPhone 5 with Passbook, new form factor, and lightning connector.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Did anyone else wonder why the heck someone would be using an ancient AMD architecture?

Wonder if there are any trademark implications of their name choice.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm wondering what you're referring to by "AMD architecture"?</comment></comment>


SISYPHUS ON FIRE: THE COMING AGILE DYSTOPIA - <AUTHOR> http://blog.cognitect.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Full link: [http://blog.cognitect.com/blog/2015/12/2/sisyphus-on- fire](http://blog.cognitect.com/blog/2015/12/2/sisyphus-on-fire)</comment>


Ask HN: Should bad software design be punishable as a crime? - <AUTHOR>

Should a developer/engineer be punished with a fine or jail for developing bad software(highly exploitable)? <comment><USER2> Probably not, but it would be interesting if we carved out a something in tort law that allowed for civil penalties when gross negligence was provable with a preponderance of the evidence.

</comment><comment><USER3> This idea strikes me as resulting in a situation similar to the need for malpractice insurance in modern western medicine. Not good for anyone but the insurance companies.</comment>


Outgrowing Advertising: Multimodal Business Models as a Product Strategy - <AUTHOR> https://a16z.com/2018/12/07/when-advertising-isnt-enough-multimodal-business-models-product-strategy/ <comment><USER2> >tip options vary from $.30 to $21

There's your problem. Try sending 30 cents digitally in the US. We have so many vultures in the middle of our transactions that the standard online payment fee is 30 cents + 2.9%! Paypal has a microtransaction fee structure but then you're in the Paypal ecosystem.

I think if we can solve the microtransaction problem in the US we can move away from the ad / surveillance tech.

<comment><USER3> I think, it's not a problem if the platform is also doubles as your own bank :D

<comment><USER2> I agree and that's in line with the solution I have in mind. There is a lot of regulation around that in the US though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> So which of these "new" business models exist outside of the eyeball and wallet economies? Tipping models exist in the US and are just as transactional as any other payments.

There are some decent points in this article but I think it really does itself a disservice by trying overhype how new and different these models are when they're really minor variations on the same basic principles. When you generalize US business models to "people use their wallets to pay for your stuff" it's going to be pretty difficult to argue that these other things fall into a new category.

</comment><comment><USER3> Oh my, just don't say to me that even Americans now got onto that "O2O" hook...

Mr Horowitz kinda missed the point no. 1 here. I think 9 out of 10 examples there were made during the "pets.com" moment that Chinese internet had around 2013-2014, where countless similar companies flopped, and the remaining ones are been failing with daily frequency since then.

For the few remaining ones, the survival is an everyday task, and there is no wonder that they got that flexible, in order to squeeze last dimes from remaining users.

</comment><comment><USER5> Let's assume that Mobile users (across the world) are open to making these micro-transactions (I think they likely are). These would qualify as in-app purchases. This makes Apple + Google the gatekeepers to this happening.

<comment><USER6> If you take QQ from the original article, you can see they have made an effort to move to the US market. Qidian launched webnovels.com this year or last with a modified model disconnected from the author/tip system but with a pay to play model and gamification. It will prove if websites and publishers can find this pattern valuable. They use PayPal and other services for their transactions, but the floor is well above the $0.30 for tips listed in the article. I suspect that has to do with our transaction fees which make anything that small a loss.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> pretty thin series of observations... they are basically saying something akin to => "In the United States, we've noticed that people primarily use money to purchase things".

<comment><USER8> To be fair, they place as much emphasis on the realization that "stuff people will pay for" movement a larger volume of money than "stuff people will get without payment".

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Why didn't AOL, Yahoo then succeed in the same way in USA?

I'm very curious if we shall see the `minitelization` of the Internet, ( `minitel` service popular in France pre-WWW? )

<comment><USER5> Up to this point, if you could amass any sort of audience, it was easier and more lucrative to monetize via ads than attempt user subscriptions/micro transactions.

I recall hearing that VCs would advise their consumer apps NOT to monetize at all so in acquisition talks they could position potential instead of actual amount / user.</comment></comment>


Widespread facemask use could shrink the 'R' number; prevent a 2nd Covid-19 wave - <AUTHOR> https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/widespread-facemask-use-could-shrink-the-r-number-and-prevent-a-second-covid-19-wave-study <comment><USER2> It's unfortunate the relevant authorities lied about the effectiveness of face masks initially. It may have been necessary to ensure adequate supplies for front-line workers, but lying to the public erodes public trust. Advise people to wear face masks today, and many ignore it as a symbol of defiance.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, that's unfortunate, but correctable. There is no excuse for the on-going refusal of the POTUS to encourage mask wearing.</comment></comment>


Cloud based email filtering and bidding service - <AUTHOR> http://ecloudguard.com

<comment><USER2> Can you give one or two use cases for this product? I guess if you are on email newsletter lists this would filter those out. But what's the purpose for the bidding feature?

<comment><AUTHOR> It could be used for some public email which receive lots of email from real people e.g. support email. The bidding is used to help identify important emails, if you have an really important email, you can place more bid to attract the receiver, also it helps to prevent spam(like in Facebook you have to pay $100 to send an message to Mark Zuckerberg)

Also you can white list some tag (e.g. Gmail support email@example.com), so if email send to an specific tagged address will automatically passed through, so you can use this address for newsletter etc.</comment></comment>


I have seen the future and I am opposed - <AUTHOR> http://www.core77.com/blog/columns/i_have_seen_the_future_and_i_am_opposed_18532.asp <comment><USER2> This is a thoughtful piece written by a tech-savvy author who expresses concerns about the idea that we, as tech consumers, will be subject to the greed-driven restraints placed upon the technology we use by various corporate interests.

The unstated premise of the piece seems to be that, as technology matures, control over it becomes consolidated in fewer hands, each of whom has a proprietary interest to limit its ultimate use in order to serve its short- term profit interests. Thus, service providers charge high roaming fees and structure their charges to serve their interests at the expense of consumers while apps that are offered come increasingly within walled gardens where proprietary overlords dictate all terms.

I believe this is all true but disagree as to its alleged threat to our future as tech consumers. Human innovation in a free enterprise system tends to take on a force of its own that overwhelms individual corporate interests. If this were not the case, then our current overlords would be Barnes & Noble (for books), Tower Records (for music), Blockbuster Video (for video rentals), Western Union (for instant messaging), IBM (for enterprise computing), and so on. These were yesterday's corporate giants and they each declined in their influence specifically because they failed to anticipate key trends in technology and thus became laggards instead of leaders.

Telco service providers, of course, have incredible power and will use that power to further their particular narrow interests if at all possible. This has resulted in a variety of frustrating user experiences. Even here, however, technology will tend to outrun their long-term ability to dictate terms. Those who are old enough will readily remember the outrageous expense, while traveling, of "long distance" charges, of the scarcity of reliable phone systems in many countries, and of the difficulty often incurred while wanting to make a call of trying to find an available phone booth while on the road. We are worlds removed from that old environment today owing to amazing advances in technology, and we as consumers are far better off than before in spite of the hassles, inconveniences, and expenses we experience with our service providers.

I resist walled gardens and proprietary traps in the marketplace as much as the next guy but these too do not threaten my choices in the long run. I may or may not like what Apple does but Apple will not control the future any more than the companies listed above. Corporate control in this sense is powerful but ephemeral - absent government restrictions that give it quasi-monopoly status, it lasts only as long as a company serves important needs of consumers. Once that slips, so too does the corporate dominance (over the long term). I may be wrong about this but, given what I have observed over my lifetime, I take a much more relaxed view of it than does the author of this piece.

<comment><USER3> Apple allows you to run any software you want on your device. If you want something that isn't in the appstore, then you can have a webapp that works as a native app, that can be downloaded from the web, appear as an app on a page of apps like all the other apps, and operate like an app with access to the sensors of the device. Apple provides a complete platform for development of these apps, completely out of apple's control. If you want a native app, you can get a developer account and install whatever software you want.

Apple does this for two reasons. The first is, giving developers these tools outside of Apple's control, is beneficial to the platform. Apple wants as much developer focus as it can. The second reason, and probably more important, is that by having unrestricted app access, Apple provides the best solution for all of its customers. More apps means happier customers.

The app store doesn't let you make malicious or pornographic apps. The former doesn't benefit anyone, and the latter while a silly restriction is easily circumvented by using the web based platform.

Apple's walled garden is more a marketing slogan of Apple's competitors than anything else. Apple really doesn't care, because what apple does, is focus on the users. (which is why iOS is an open platform.)

<comment><USER4> It's like the parent said "blah, blah blah, blah, I may (blah) not like Apple blah, blah, blah".

<comment><USER5> You'll notice he's updated his about: "Don't participate anymore due to the hive mind, intolerance and lack of quality discussions here."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Oh dear. Don Norman has discovered why free software is about freedom and what the cloud business model is really about.

"One reason you should not use web applications to do your computing is that you lose control," he said. "It's just as bad as using a proprietary program. Do your own computing on your own computer with your copy of a freedom- respecting program. If you use a proprietary program or somebody else's web server, you're defenceless. You're putty in the hands of whoever developed that software."[1]

He dismisses GNU/Linux right off the bat, even though the very reason why GNU was even born[2] is the very same problem he is starting to admit (given where he worked, I think he saw this ...but now that he no longer seem to profit from it enough to even get his blackberry roaming payed for him by The Company Overlord -- welcome to the reality of the majority).

Just visit <http://www.debian.org/> and download <http://www.libreoffice.org/> and do something about it, instead of musing and whining (I am awaiting a functionality he would need that is missing).

[1] [http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/sep/29/cloud.compu...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/sep/29/cloud.computing.richard.stallman)

[2] <http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html>

<comment><USER7> Recently I keep hearing pundits opine that the "open source" movement hasn't gone anywhere and is basically irrelevant.

IMO that is a great sign that it's a good time to be getting into Free Software. The Affero GPL is probably the only thing that can realize the potential of cloud computing, and keep the cloud bubble from popping and a major swing back to locally hosted IT systems.

PS - Also, I am very glad that "open source" became unfashionable because it made Eric Raymond go away.

<comment><USER8> <http://michael-wheeler.org/2011/01/29/leaving-the-cloud/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Does it strike any one else as at least a _bit_ disturbing that he thinks his "mind" is in his smart phone, and finds no problem with this other than that service providers are greedy?

An obvious way to avoid becoming beholden to service providers is to retain some independence from our devices. It's not like people didn't travel before the invention of the iPhone.

<comment> Tuna-Fish Should we discard our clothes harden ourselves for the weather to become less dependent on clothing manufacturers?

Technology is what separates humans from the rest of the animals. As time goes by, we will become more and more dependent on our technology, and this is a _good thing_ , because I with my smartphone or laptop can do things I wouldn't be able to do alone.

<comment><USER10> False analogy. There is a big, big difference between clothes that keep you from perishing due to exposure, and your shiny new smart phone. The real problem here is that the author is, apparently, incapable of thought without an array of instant-access resources at his disposal.

<comment><USER11> Clearly he is capable of thought without "instant-access resources", given that he drafted the article without them.

Internet access is becoming a fundamental human requirement; this need should not be overly exploited by corporations.

<comment><USER10> Food, water, shelter, medical care. These are fundamental human requirements. The internet is not. Sorry, but it's just not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This piece is short on big-picture thinking. None of its complaints hold up under scrutiny.

Mobile internet access while traveling abroad is expensive and unreliable because it's _new_. Yes, there are commercial forces that try to maintain high prices as long as possible, but short-term profits never hold up forever. Fifty years ago, every phone bill in the US was payable to AT&T, and long distance calls could cost dollars (not cents) per minute. Thirty years ago, we gained multiple long distance carriers and prices fell quickly. Twenty years ago, we cut the cord, but cell phones charged by the minute and came with draconian contracts. Today it's common to lease a service with an near- infinite supply of minutes, that lets you call anywhere in the country for a flat rate. It's incredibly cheap compared to long distance of twenty years ago. All this, despite the evil resistance of profiteering corporations.

Sure, Microsoft laughed at Apple and Sun when they approached to develop a common standard platform. Times change, and high profits are constantly under attack. Microsoft completely missed the internet boat -- not a single protocol in use on the internet today comes out of Microsoft. Google and many other corporations offer free products that compete favorably with Microsoft's expensive products of yore. It must have sucked to compete with Microsoft in the 90's, but here we are, and where is Microsoft? Sinking billions into R&D in the race against Google.

Over and over, new technologies lead to incredible profits for a few, controlling corporations, but inevitably these situations aren't permanent. Our internet faces censorship threats from governments and exclusivity threats from corporations, but these controls, like others before, won't last.

So what is Mr. Norman going on about? Short-term profiteering? That's what covers my paycheck, and makes all this possible. Privatization of the internet? Maybe temporarily, but if that doesn't truly benefit the public then it simply can't endure against technological advancement.

<comment><USER13> "Over and over, new technologies lead to incredible profits for a few, controlling corporations, but inevitably these situations aren't permanent."

It's not inevitable. It's because people work to spread awareness and change the situation.

<comment><USER12> ...and a thousand other reasons. Perhaps a government steps in to break a monopoly. Perhaps a new technology arrives to subvert the control. Perhaps a competitor simply offers something a little better or cheaper.

We don't necessarily have to "spread awareness" for a problem to find a solution. In this case, especially, we're all already pretty "aware" that roaming internet sucks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> "as the business potential became obvious to corporate warlords, they struck, [...] getting willing governments to enact rules, regulations and laws to protect corporate interests"

Aye, there's the rub. Corporate welfare programs are the root cause of everything he's describing, and of a lot of other problems with today's economic system. Restrictions on competition, created by the government, have been a major obstacle to everyone's welfare since at least the 18th century (Adam Smith rails against them at length in _Wealth of Nations_ ).

</comment><comment><USER15> One of the joys of travel is the disconnect. Frankly, the more connected we become, the less time we have for ourselves. I hate it that now I can go to just about the most remote place on earth and no longer have a good reason not be answering emails or phoning home.

Anyone who NEEDS this level of connectivity must be losing all power of imagination, of self-reliance, of self-sufficiency. One of the joys of being abroad is that sense of discovery, finding stuff out for yourself, and more often than not meeting new people in the process. Where's the fun, the romance, in having your phone recommend you a restaurant?

I don't have a smart phone, and am not sure I ever will. I'm in front of the internet all day long in the office, and often at home. Being out and about is a welcome break. And if I need to find somewhere to eat, I'll go find it myself. I'll take in the city, absorb my surroundings, and discover new things in the process.

I have seen the future, and I am opposed too.

</comment><comment><USER16> What worries me about this post is that the most salient solution to one of the main complaints (roaming fees) is to have one giant worldwide provider of mobile broadband. And it's not hard to imagine why that might not be so good.

</comment><comment><USER17> This is basically the main thesis of Zittrains 'The Future of the Internet: And how to stop it'

<http://futureoftheinternet.org/>

Agree that it is a problem. Quite brave, by the way, that he speaks out about this as a (former) Apple VP...

</comment><comment><USER18> I agree with many of Norman's concerns.

To the extent that connectivity and access are increasingly becoming essential to a modern way of life, commerce, education, etc. and considering the clear direction towards consolidation, oligopolization etc., ISP/cable/wireless providers increasingly look like natural monopolies. Somewhere on the spectrum of a public national highway system, public utilities, or a regulated broadcast and telecom systems, probably more towards the latter.

There are lots of good reasons for being concerned, and historical lessons abound.

</comment><comment><USER19> I for one think that (reasonable) asymmetrical internet connections are mostly a good thing. I mean, could you imagine a residential internet connection that really would handle eg slashdotting? On the other hand, you can get cheapo VPS or a piece of cloud for a fraction of a cost of a actual server, and includes internet connection, probably at least 100M, but likely a Gigabit. And because of high download speeds, _you_ can actually put eg HD videos on your VPS and people will be able to actually consume them.

And that VPS will have probably far less limitations on the content you are distributing via it compared to a residential connection, partly because the higher competition. And _if_ your VPS provider decides to shut your revolutionary website down, it's trivial to move to an another provider, compared to switching your home connection. And additionally VPS is easier to anonymize if you need/want to. Your home connection will always point to your home, and to you.

</comment><comment><USER20> 1\. Buy a SIM card in your destination country. 2. Profit.

<comment><USER21> Unless you have an unlocked (i)phone, I believe this will probably fail. Sadly.

Highly likely to be the case if you are American.

<comment><USER22> So pay attention before you buy your phone. It's not hard.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> _My phone translates foreign languages, provides maps and directions, recommends restaurants and tells me the news of the day. It lets me communicate with friends around the world and in general, allows me to function. All my knowledge depends upon access to communication services: my email, my calendar, my maps and guidebooks. But all of this is at the mercy of the service provider._

While I agree with his post on the whole, nearly all of those smartphone apps are available offline. His point is more valid when it comes to content.

</comment><comment><USER24> This reminds me of McLuhan's thesis on technology: for each advance, something is effectively lost.

That said, I recommend the author bring a paper book along whenever he travels.

</comment><comment><USER25> To quote: "My intelligence is in the cloud. My life is in the cloud. My friends, photographs, ideas and mail. My life. My mind. Take away my cloud and I am left mindless.

Mindless, unattached, not clinging... a proper Nirvana.

</comment><comment><USER26> What about consumer responsibility? caveat empetor and all. Capitalism only works when we the consumer are willing to buy what is out there instead of holding out for better offers.

</comment><comment><USER27> Wonder why he writes his column in Word, I can think of no tangible benefit. In fact writing in Word on a Mac is really annoying because you get no spell check access.

</comment><comment><USER28> _Exorbitant roaming_

Why not get a local pay-as-you-go GSM SIM with a data bundle, pop into your phone, and voila?

</comment><comment><USER29> It's an interesting post. A few points:

> But what I see developing seems driven by greed and profit...

Yes, it's called "capitalism".

> For me, the future would bring forth solutions to our needs and wants...

Check.

> design that provides value in a sustainable and responsible manner...

"Sustainable" is an extremely loaded term. Basically, you get it when the market demands it. If you see it as important, it's not a failure of the producers: it's a failure of the consumers to demand or the governments to require it.

The rest of the post talks about nascent issues of balkanization, which is the natural path of progression. Consider the examples of railroads in the US and the road system in the UK. In both cases, they were initially private endeavours that were likewise driven by "greed and profit". Arguably in both cases the high pricing stifled innovation and in both cases, the systems were eventually nationalized.

In the UK's example, nationalization fostered trade (the roads were all toll roads previously). In the case of the US railroads, nationalization can arguably be seen as a disaster so there are mixed results of this.

Ultimately though the story is one of commoditization. We are still in the pioneering days of these technologies and as time goes on they will get cheaper and ubiquitous to the point where people through the instrument of governments will start to see such services as basic rights, much as is becoming the case with Internet access, which many countries are starting to see as the "fourth utility".

"Greed and profit" propelled us from an a hunter-gatherer and agrarian existence to manned spaceflight and the global Internet. Don't be quick to dismiss or disparage "greed and profit" as there has been no greater catalyst for human advancement.

As for his talk of "open standards", I refer you to Dave McClure's "Open is for Losers" [1]. We may find open desirable philosophically but it is not the natural product of a market--at least not an _immature_ market. Open standards are the byproduct of commoditization.

As for synchronous Internet connections:

> Why would it harm companies to provide equal access?

The predominant form of broadband access in many countries is ADSL. The "A" is asynchronous in this case. ADSL2+ is up to 24M down and 1M up (2M with Annex M). Gain more upload speed and you lose download speed. So this isn't an artificial restriction: it's giving consumers what they most likely want. You can buy SDSL links. They have lower (relative) download speeds and generally higher cost, mostly because they're a business product as a general rule.

> I fear the Internet is doomed to fail, to be replaced by tightly controlled > gardens of exclusivity.

I don't. I see such walled gardens as merely transitional. The "greed and profit" that drives them pulls us all forward and makes a bucketload of money for a few in the process. For a time.

> Today it is too easy for unknown entities to penetrate into private homes > and businesses, stealing identities and corporate secrets.

Not really. If you run a Windows machine directly on the Internet (ie not via a router that does NAT, etc) then you kinda get what you deserve.

The fact is, the closed devices the OP bemoans are actually much safer for such things and that's almost _by definition_ because as soon as you get a complicated mess like Windows, faults are inevitable.

TL:DR the sky isn't falling.

[1]: [http://venturebeat.com/2010/05/19/dave-mcclure-open-is- for-l...](http://venturebeat.com/2010/05/19/dave-mcclure-open-is-for-losers/)

<comment><USER30> > In the UK's example, nationalization fostered trade (the roads were all toll > roads previously). In the case of the US railroads, nationalization can > arguably be seen as a disaster so there are mixed results of this.

It's a mixed bag all around, this one. The railroads in the US were killed, for the most part, by the Interstate Highway system, an equally nationalized endeavor. But really, they were doomed by geographic reality. Population density in the US is such that in most parts of the country a car is an absolute requirement for every working adult. And gas is cheap enough (relative to the rest of the world) that it's cost effective to rely on trucks and airplanes to move merchandise.

If you privatized Amtrak tomorrow, you'd still see full rail service up and down the Boston-NYC-DC corridor. But running a train through "flyover" country is a waste of money from the get-go.

<comment><USER31> >And gas is cheap enough (relative to the rest of the world) that it's cost effective to rely on trucks and airplanes to move merchandise.

The US has one of the largest, most used freight rail systems in the world (both overall and per capita).

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_usage_statistics_by_countr...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_usage_statistics_by_country)

<http://www.economist.com/node/16636101>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> >...18532.asp

I can see that you are.</comment>


Initial Coin Offerings Horrify a Former S.E.C. Regulator - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/26/business/initial-coin-offering-critic.html <comment><AUTHOR> From article:

Joseph Grundfest, who was a commissioner at the S.E.C. in the 1980s and is now a law and business professor at Stanford, said he had been contacting current commission officials and staff to urge them to bring cases, and fast.

"I.C.O.s represent the most pervasive, open and notorious violation of federal securities laws since the Code of Hammurabi," Mr. Grundfest said in an interview.

"It's more than the extent of the violation," he said. "It's the almost comedic quality of the violation."

...

"We're waiting to see a whole bunch of enforcement actions in this space, and we wonder why they haven't happened yet," he said. "I hope what they are doing is planning on a sweep of 50 I.C.O.s."

</comment><comment><USER2> Of course he's horrified. The whole point is to obviate the regulators.</comment>


Facebook agrees to block sexual assault 'humor' - <AUTHOR> http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/facebook-agrees-block-sexual-assault-humor-6C10094982 <comment><USER2> I find it strange that there is pressure from companies advertising on facebook about this. They signed up for ads on a user generated content site and then are displeased with some of the content?

Why are they even concerned about this? "Sexual assualt 'humor'" is in the extreme minority of posts on facebook. Maybe they don't want their ads next to it but _that's what they signed up for_. They wanted their ads next to whatever people posted on facebook knowing that the content was out of their control.

<comment><USER3> This is a rather disingenuous comment.

Maybe they didn't anticipate that a site that rigorously polices (for example) breast-feeding pictures and race hate material wouldn't rigorously police "rape a bitch" image macros.

They have discovered that having their ads next to this sort of content is _not_ what they signed up for, after all, and are planning to unsign up for this stuff. Companies change their minds all the time about where they advertise - advertising on a service isn't some sort of lifetime promise.

<comment><USER2> I will not be sad to see "rape a bitch" macros go but having their ads next to stuff like this is exactly what they signed up for. They signed up for their ads to be displayed next to whatever anyone posted.

Anyone who has used the internet for any length of time knows there are large amounts of disturbing content on it which will definitely spill into any user generated content site. I find it hard to believe that 15 separate companies failed to realise this, especially since I would expect their advertising departments to be well read on "the internet".

What I think may be happening is one company latching onto a group of activists with a very reasonable request to get some positive press and a bunch of companies "me too"ing along behind them. 4 companies were named in this article and 2 of them got airtime on NBC with the most inoffensive sound byte ever ("we are against rape"). That's free TV air time in a news slot appealing to your core demographic.

<comment><USER4> They signed up for having their ads shown next to content that is within Facebook's posting guidelines. Or else why not advertise on /b/ if you truly had no qualms about the content?

While I don't discount that they're going to get some press over this, raising issues over Facebook tacitly supporting rape culture is perfectly acceptable for a company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is (I would guess) a direct response to something that occurred last week. There was a "photo meme" being passed around on facebook, showing a photo of a girl with her mouth taped, with the caption "tape her and rape her". Someone made a screenshot of this, with an add for Audible on the page.

A shitstorm ensued, with people blaming Audible and/or Facebook for showing an ad next to such an image (it's rather hard to parse a meme photo for what text is actually written on the image, right?) You can see more info about this on a google search: [https://www.google.com/search?q=facebook+audible+tape+her+an...](https://www.google.com/search?q=facebook+audible+tape+her+and+rape+her)

I guess Audible has leaned heavily on Facebook to respond to what has apparently been a very difficult PR issue for them.

Disclosure: I have nothing to do with Facebook or Audible, I am just passing on what I have heard from people involved.

<comment><USER6> Useful background info, thanks.

> it's rather hard to parse a meme photo for what text is actually written on > the image, right?

Actually it's trivial, but I suspect it's just not being done because most pictures on facebook don't have text so why would facebook bother?

<comment><USER7> Doesn't Reddit's meme caption bot actually do this, or is it in fact a human? SFW example: [http://www.reddit.com/r/AdviceAnimals/comments/1f8ld3/worked...](http://www.reddit.com/r/AdviceAnimals/comments/1f8ld3/worked_as_a_barista_for_4_years_more_people_need/ca7ty5d.compact)

EDIT: ah, no, it just scrapes QuickMeme's UI for the entered text. Oh well...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wonder if rape jokes targeting males will also be removed as I have found these much more common than rape jokes targeting females, particularly regarding the rape of suspected male criminals. An example: <http://i.imgur.com/X8cjv2v.png>

<comment><USER9> This isn't reddit and it's especially not r/mensrights

[Edit] Since I got a downvote right away, here is my reasoning: Rape of any form is terrible. But the reaction to rape of females shouldn't be changing the subject to rape of males. It's diminishing the gravity of both by brushing away the importance of one with an inappropriate overstating of the other. And that's precisely the style of discussion prevalent in r/mensrights and it would be terrible if that made its way over to HN.

<comment><USER10> The poster wasn't changing the subject from the rape of females to the rape of males. The title of the article is "Facebook agrees to ban sexual assault 'humor'" and not "Facebook agrees to ban sexual assault against women 'humor'" yet the article only seemed to address sexual assault against women humor. Asking if the policy also extends to humor regarding sexual assaults against males is a fair question under the circumstances and in no way diminishes the gravity of both.

According to surveys 7 - 12% percent of males report having been the victim of a sexual assault with the vast majority of victims having been assaulted while minors. The rate of sexual assaults against males is increasing. It is a serious and increasing problem.

<comment><USER9> It's a tough call to make, but you do have a point.

I suppose what kind of threw me off was that the image linked as an example by the poster could be understood as both a male and female version of sexual assault "jokes". Still, the _implication_ is clearly male, just as the _implication_ of the article was clearly female. (Actually, a little more than just implication, but the title sets to tone to be a little more general.)

One point I do still maintain is that there simply _is_ a clear imbalance between sexual assault on females and males. Yes, that does not change the gravity of either, but it does suggest how the conversation about it ought to run. If it were the other way around, seeing society predominantly talk about female sexual assault would be troublesome. But it is not and thus pulling the conversation towards male sexual assault kind of rings my alarm bells. Just as the _implication_ is universally female, bringing up male sexual assault _implies_ trying to diminish it being a predominantly female issue.

It is accurate that sexual assault against females gets the center stage and it is just as correct that sexual assault against males is a serious issue.

Your point about sexual assaults against males being _rising_ is interesting - do you happen to have a link on that? My immediate theory would be that while there might be a rise, it can only ever be a rise in _reported_ assault. So I would guess that it is probably increased by the fact that we as a society have become more open to accept males as victims of sexual assault in the first place. But I would be interested in seeing actual data on that.

<comment><USER8> _One point I do still maintain is that there simply is a clear imbalance between sexual assault on females and males. Yes, that does not change the gravity of either, but it does suggest how the conversation about it ought to run. If it were the other way around, seeing society predominantly talk about female sexual assault would be troublesome. But it is not and thus pulling the conversation towards male sexual assault kind of rings my alarm bells. Just as the implication is universally female, bringing up male sexual assault implies trying to diminish it being a predominantly female issue._

uhhh...???

Jokes about male rape are accepted by the mainstream more than female rape jokes, in my opinion, specifically prison rape. Under almost any article/image about some criminal (particularly violent criminals) or suspected criminal that has numerous comments, you will find facetious comments about how that criminal will/should be raped in prison. Now, I asked my original question because, if facebook do start to remove jokes about male rape, it will affect a larger number of people and perhaps affect people that do not feel that a joke about male prison rape is actually a rape joke and I find that interesting.

<comment><USER9> Actually, I did not disagree with that, so I'm not sure what you mean.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Hard to see how this won't slide down the slippery slope of banning all "offensive" content...at what point do you say we are OK with this particular group being offended but not others?

Perhaps when the mainstream media starts agitating over it...

<comment><USER4> At least you invoked the name of the logical fallacy.

And it's more than just offense in this case. Sexual assault is a very serious and terrible thing to have happen. Joking about it legitimizes and normalizes it, contributing to incidents. I imagine it's the same thing as with hate speech: it could prompt acts of violence toward people of the targeted group.

<comment><USER11> And sincere discussions of alternative political systems could lead to another Stalin/Mao/Hitler. Criticizing Islam might lead to another holocaust.

At what point do you let people share ideas freely without holding them responsible for what "might happen"? When can a joke "just be a joke"?

<comment><USER4> A joke with "tape her and rape her" is not a sincere discussion.

People posting on Facebook is a privilege granted at the sole discretion of Facebook, it's not a right. While I support free speech, it's completely at FB's discretion as to whether or not content is acceptable.

Also, this could help you: <https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/slippery-slope>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's good that FB bowed to pressure, but not so impressed that they considered the content not acceptable even when people flagged it as wrong.

<http://www.womenactionmedia.org/facebookaction/examples/>

</comment><comment><USER13> I don't understand why Facebook needs to block content. If I don't like what people are posting I can just unfriend them.

<comment><USER14> > I don't understand why Facebook needs to block content.

It may not need to, but it decided to do so years ago. And when breastfeeding or breast cancer groups get blocked or partially censored, it's hard to understand why rape apology groups are allowed to remain.

<comment><USER15> > rape apology groups

I don't even have a Facebook account, but is this real? Do people join groups to defend their "right to rape"? That's beyond disgusting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Facebook has gotten too big for it's own good. How can they be held accountable for every single thing said by their users?!

It goes against human nature. People curse, people are horrible to each other, people make fun of terrible things... It's a fact of life. You can't cleanse the world of bad human behaviour. That's a fight you can't win. Facebook will try and censor their systems, people will hate it, and Facebook will die trying.

EDIT: I guess I'm being overly pessimistic here. Facebook has no choice but to do something. It just feels like:

"We have to do something." "This is something!" "Therefore we have to do it!"

<comment><USER14> > How can they be held accountable for every single thing said by their > users?!

That _could_ stand if they didn't try to police their users at all, but they do, significantly, on a number of areas: facebook has banned or censored groups and images on such sujects as breastfeeding, breast cancer or children with birth defects[0]. Yet, and there's the rub, rape and violence groups were allowed to run unimpeded and reports were generally ignored when they didn't lead to the complainer being blocked.

[0] [http://www.elephantjournal.com/2012/11/does-facebook-hate- al...](http://www.elephantjournal.com/2012/11/does-facebook-hate-all-women-or- just-feminists/)

<comment><USER16> I know that's the situation. What I'm trying to say is this: that list (breastfeeding, breast cancer or children with birth defects, joking about rape, violence...) is just going to grow longer, and longer, and longer...

In the article it says: "... Facebook says it will process more complaints and will train its staff of reviewers ...". That means they are doing a big part of the censoring MANUALLY! You will NEVER be able to remove garbage faster than people creating it.

<comment><USER14> > I know that's the situation. What I'm trying to say is this: that list > (breastfeeding, breast cancer or children with birth defects, joking about > rape, violence...) is just going to grow longer, and longer, and longer...

Sure, but that's got nothing to do with the part I quoted: you asked why they can be "held accountable" (for extremely loose definitions of "held" and "accountable") for everything their users say, and the answer is: because they decided to police what their users say, once they start policing they're held accountable for what they police and how they police it.

> That means they are doing a big part of the censoring MANUALLY!

Yes?

> You will NEVER be able to remove garbage faster than people creating it.

You probably won't do it automatically either, at least not without significant collateral damages anyway (see: Google).

And as far as I know, Facebook mostly acts on reports (which happens to be the way HN works as well), they generally don't remove content preemptively.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Well it would have been better to ban rape jokes (shorter stronger and easier to communicate and connect to), but seems PR departments are quite busy in transforming the English language to Bureaucracyspeak already.

It is good to see movement of the problem, although some for m of hellbanning of pages and profiles is a better solution.

</comment><comment><USER18> I don't like this direction. I think any legal content should be allowed.

</comment><comment><USER19> Too bad negative keywords (what baidu/bing/google/yahoo/yandex/etc use in search ads) don't really work in this context. Display ads are hard :(</comment>


Ask HN: Best hosted solution to sell digital products? - <AUTHOR>

I've done some research on few of the hosted solutions (volusion, shopify, corecommerce etc.) for selling digital products ... but pros and cons of each of them confuses me further. I thought Amazon Webstore would be the choice with less hassles but they dont let u sell digital products yet, so I'm back to square one.<p>Any suggestions? <comment><USER2> Have you heard about e-junkie? I've only been on the customer side, but I see it a lot when buying ebooks. Plus they've got an affiliate system baked in.</comment>


Group-buying industry's growth  - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/22/group-buying-138-percent-2-7-billion/

<comment><USER2> I love group buying! I even started using the aftermarket of Groupon and LivingSocial for even better deals!

Thank you DealsGoRound.com</comment>


Ask HN: Is a career in software development the easiest way to maximize income? - <AUTHOR> Hello HN
I'm a "typical" software engineer working as a team lead in SF for a small startup. Reading a few threads on salaries, it seems the average compensation in the area for software engineers (employees, including salary and various bonuses and excluding startup stock options) is capped at about 200-250k. A smaller pool of employees is also able to pull in more (250k-500k) by working for several years in Google/Facebook/...
I've also been talking to many people who work in sales for tech companies (sales account managers and pre/post sales engineering) and, while the base salary of those people is on average smaller compared to the core engineers' one, I consistently see those people earning commissions that put them in much higher income ranges. It seems completely normal for them to consistently pull in about 500k a year or more.
At the same time, the entry barrier for those positions doesn't seem to be any harder than the software engineering one. For a sales engineer role, which is the one requiring the highest level of technical skills, it seems a matter of picking the right company (namely any successful B2B big tech corporation, mid size company or startup) and being able to have a reasonably technical conversation with a customer as well as doing some basic troubleshooting and support. This has been confirmed by pretty much all my acquaintances working in those positions in the bay.
I'd just love to to get some opinions from the wise HN audience on this matter. <comment><USER2> I have observed this myself. At one company I worked at, with about $50M in annual sales, the 'top sales' award was fiercely competed between two guys who'd each got about $10M in sales for the year. I don't know what the commission structure was, but at 10% that's $1M.

Those two were a breed apart however. They could talk to anyone, everyone liked them. They could work product and project mgmt teams to get just enough done to make the deal. The product at the time was a bit of dog too. I don't know how they did it, One thing I observed was; they seemed to have deep contacts in the companies they were selling to. How they developed these networks, I don't know. I think that is the "secret sauce" so to speak.

<comment><AUTHOR> But you don't always need to build a network yourself: in my experience, if you're reasonably bright from the technical point of view, you get paired with a sales account manager who will chase the deals for you, so you just show up, take care of the (relative simple) technical bits, and get your commission. He will do everything else.

<comment><USER2> Ah ok, I missed you were specifically talking about sales engineering, my mistake.</comment></comment></comment>


Google's Founders Wanted to Shape a City – Toronto Is Their Chance - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/18/upshot/taxibots-sensors-and-self-driving-shuttles-a-glimpse-at-an-internet-city-in-toronto.html <comment><USER2> It's hard to "move fast and break things" in government because in modern city development, neighbourhood consultation is the basis of how decisions are made, and for good reason.

Neighbourhood consultation is a reaction to past urban planning regrets and failures, where heavy handed government "urban renewal" initiatives razed entire neighbourhoods, most often marginalized and ethnic minority ones.

In the worst case community consultation can be distorted into blind NIMBYism that serves only to slow down all development, but nonetheless we know that from our previous mistakes that consultation is required.

I would count myself among those a bit concerned about Silicon Valley being so eager to "fix" problems with cities. Will Sidewalk Labs employ and listen to urban planning experts that have studied cities for their entire careers or is Toronto going to be a sandbox for clueless software engineers' pet theories?

Will Google be so eager to test out self driving cars that they'll discount and ignore decades of knowledge about how cars impact neighbourhoods?

<comment><USER3> It could go full Fahrenheit 451 or 1984 with googles power of surveillance and monitoring. No doubt they may have the ability to implement helpful new technologies, but googles revenue model is still advertisement.

<comment><USER4> Or Black Mirror style with "freemium-subsidized condominiums". Imagine cheaper condos that you have to watch commercials every couple minutes, and of course they know if you're closing your eyes or not looking (think iPhone X).

Of course you can pay a higher rent to disable them and go "ad free". ;)

<comment><USER5> That doesn't actually sound too bad.

I wonder what prevents these at SF?

<comment><USER6> I'm doubtful that even the most invasive advertising would be capable of generating enough revenue. $1500/mo is still $50 a day. Say you're typically only home for a few waking hours in the evening— how do you consume enough advertising to pay for $50?

<comment><USER5> Buying home appliances a few times an year and watching recommended shows and movies could generate that amount (for young people with disposable income, at least).

<comment><USER3> Home appliances, cars, medicines seem likely candidates. I think it would be used to assess demand for new products as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> To those saying "a big company shaping cities is bad" \- take a hard look at how American cities are shaped now and the big companies who influenced the relevant policies. You're going to find oil, car, tire, etc companies at the forefront.

<comment><USER8> American cities were generally not shaped directly by the companies, rather, by the economy made from those companies.

Lots of cars = big stores = possibility for suburbs.

Exxon did not say to the President: 'build suburbs because it's good for cars'.

I believe Google has considerably more goodwill - at the same time...

 _We 've known for 100's of years how to build good cities_

Cities are about people, culture and architecture - not 'wifi' and 'hyper- loops'.

Many North American cities are trying to get people to bicycle - yeah - that's retrograde ! and good. We don't need tech for that.

Utopian thinking usually ends up in dystopia because of the arrogance of the 'visionaries' \- they over emphasize some things, and fail to recognize the underlying, important things.

I can't think of a single 'modern' city, truly designed in the modern era that is a glowing example of 'how it should be'.

All the great places to live are old - built before cars, interesting architecture, and some kind of local culture with nice people, low crime, fresh air. That's mostly what you need.

Want a hyperloop? Sure. Put it underground where nobody can see it, and it serves it's function: getting people from A->B.

<comment><USER7> > Exxon did not say to the President: 'build suburbs because it's good for > cars'.

Yes he did. A few examples of what oil/car folks did: dismantle public transit, make sure negative externalities of cars are not directly paid, lobby congress to pay for 90% of highways and make transit funding less/harder to get, get into wars for oil, take over planning departments at highly regarded colleges and change curriculum to churn out car focused planners.

<comment><USER9> Don't forget that Eisenhower created the Interstate System [1] which was car based and heavily advertised for traveling for Americans, while also being a national security need for military transport.

Creating the interstate systems did kill trains but also greatly influenced where cities and economies sprang up. It also made the US a car culture and locked it in, which worked great for big areas of undeveloped land at the time, and allowed people to move around more freely.

I'd love a president or government in the US to do the same and make an electric car interstate system, basically just giving it to companies like Tesla or others with conditions. Basically start adding electric car charging stations and add an iteration to the interstates, make them self-driving capable and more.

Or a president or government policy to get gigabit broadband across the nation as a new baseline of digital transportation of data that will open up unforseen new products and markets.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_System)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Toronto is already one of the best walkable cities in North America (Jane Jacobs even moved there)

Why not fix a place that has more problems, like this suggestion, Let's Build A Village From A Parking Lot [http://andrewalexanderprice.com/blog20151203.php#.WejmJ4hOk2...](http://andrewalexanderprice.com/blog20151203.php#.WejmJ4hOk2w)

</comment><comment><USER11> AFAIK, Sidewalk Labs in NYC has just put up fast-speed Internet WiFi stations that also function as advertising billboards and phone stations (and phone charging stations) at the same time. This Wired story has some photos: [https://www.wired.com/2016/02/googles-city-fixing- sidewalk-l...](https://www.wired.com/2016/02/googles-city-fixing-sidewalk- labs-is-finally-getting-to-work/)

It looks like they're looking to do a lot more than that in Toronto?

<comment><USER12> They already are.

[https://security.stackexchange.com/q/169374/122495](https://security.stackexchange.com/q/169374/122495) ( How is Google's Sidewalk Labs Tracking me?)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I just hope they make the area dense in population, and design it for the pedestrian and not the car.

<comment><USER14> Is density really a good thing in any capacity beyond the single point of enabling more specialized jobs to exist there?

<comment><USER15> In dense areas you usually don't need a car. All shops are close enough to walk as there are enough customers around. Dense mixed areas can also lead to short commute times.

And walkability is not just about traffic jams, it's about health. Walking to work is likely to improve health vs. driving.

<comment><USER14> Some downsides for me are long waits/required reservations at establishments, general crowdedness (in itself and how it enables pickpocketing etc), higher background noise, and more. Having experience with some different density levels throughout my life I'll probably always prefer some approximation to the "small town" style I grew up with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This area of Toronto is difficult to get to. It's cut off from the rest of the city by a large elevated highway (Gardiner) and a huge river (Don River). It's neglected for a reason. I really think this would be detrimental to Sidewalk Labs' mission, all of the work would get ignored.

<comment><USER17> No way.

The harborfront has undergone a massive transformation the last couple of years and is one of the most dense residential areas in the city now. Also, it is projected to add 280,000 residents and 190,000 jobs in the coming years.

The city has reiterated time and time again that Toronto is a waterfront city, and they will continue to invest and prioritize heavily in this area.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Is Toronto among the class of cities that are relatively new enough to be shaped by a large corporation moving in? From what I've heard, a lot of the development in that town has happened in the postwar, and is still in rapid development mode.

<comment><USER8> A city can be in 'perpetual rapid development' if they are constantly tearing down the old and building the new.

Toronto was reasonably spread out.

The Canadian economy is addicted to 'new construction' as a form of growth + plus mass-scale immigration. Without it, the GDP numbers would not be good. Granted - the GDP/capita numbers would be just fine, so the choice is ideological.

Toronto opened up it's downtown to residential construction and that has been most of the change: massive residential towers (or even smaller ones) closer to downtown.

Of course - the endless construction of identical looking homes for 100Km in all direction continues unabated.

Driving North out of Toronto now - it goes on forever: identical homes, a Timmies, a Starbucks, a Home Depot, a TD Bank, another batch of the same homes, a Timmies, a Starbucks, a TD Bank - reapeat ad nauseum.

I think the expansion has largely been a disaster and we'll look back on it mostly as an economic trick to fill as many homes as possible in a short period of time.

<comment><USER18> Well, at least it sounds like the opposite problem that the Bay Area has! And yet the real estate in Toronto is just as expensive?

<comment><USER8> Real Estate in TO is expensive, but nowhere near SF.

SF has:

A) Earthquakes B) The Bay is a hodgepodge of cities. TO is mostly one big city under the same management. C) SF has quirky and specific views of 'how they ought to be'. Oddly conflicting at times.

There's plenty of geography around the Bay - there's no reason that SF 'has to go vertical' while the other areas don't.

Too much blame on SF.

If it's safe to put 25 story residences in SF surely it is also in Palo Alto and Freemont etc..

Or maybe tech could find another hub?

<comment><USER19> Or better yet, forgo a hub at all :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The reason why tech companies can not easily make their cities better is because of local law & policy and not by choice of the company.

I bet google would just love to induce high rise development in palo alto with a monorail loop that serviced the FB, Google & Stanford campuses and a few stops around caltrain stations.

But they can't because prop 13 makes new housing a net negative on the city budget and local NIMBYs love their prop 13 shielded price gains, creating a strong force to disallow new housing and only allow new office space.

<comment><USER15> While I think high population density is great, I wouldn't want Google to redesign silicon valley. Cities formed by a single company (or even single industry) suffer when the industry leaves or collapses. Today's tech companies won't be around forever.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The hubris! We have a set of democratic institutions to do that called "government"

</comment><comment><USER22> There has been talk on the radio locally about the amazon hq2 and the chances that Toronto might be in the running as well if they were in the market to do the same thing.

</comment><comment><USER23> They can name the area "Panopticon Village".

</comment><comment><USER24> I wonder if people see the word Google and just freak out. If you read closely you'll see it's a bid. They are preparing a plan but City officials still would need to approve the plan. Y'all acting like Google bought the land, which isn't true.

<comment><USER15> Not because it's google. But because companies shaping cities hasn't worked out well in the past. E.g. optimising a city for autonomous vehicles might not be a good idea compared to optimising it for walking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Something is going to happen in the North!

</comment><comment><USER26> this message will probably get downvotes but my first feeling that came out was how about this American company shapes American cities first. I live in Miami, and we need more dev jobs. In South Florida, the dev community is super small.. This is unacceptable, we need help down here.

PS: go ahead and downvote me, my opinion doesn't need your approval.

PS#2: i did not read the article, i just read the title. So what?! i can't comment? Yes i can, tyvm...

<comment><USER27> Please don't break the site guidelines by going on about downvotes. It's tedious and does no good.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Inferring book genre from its description - <AUTHOR> Given description of a book find its genre. For example:
Book: Python Cookbook
Description (taken from Amazon): If you need help writing programs in Python 3, or want to update older Python 2 code, this book is just the ticket. Packed with practical recipes written and tested with Python 3.3, this unique cookbook is for experienced Python programmers who want to focus on modern tools and idioms. Inside, you'll find complete recipes for more than a dozen topics, covering the core Python language as well as tasks common to a wide variety of application domains. Each recipe contains code samples you can use in your projects right away, along with a discussion about how and why the solution works.
Output: [Python] <comment><USER2> There are various AI techniques you could apply, but I've also used "keyword weight tables" for similar auto-classification tasks. Simplified Example:

(Word) | (Category) | (Weight)

COBOL | Programming | 7

Python | Programming | 3

Python | Animals | 3

Java | Programming | 3

Java | Drinks | 3

("COBOL" is generally unambiguous so we give it a high weight.)

You run all the words of the description thru it and the final "best guess" is the category with the highest score: the weight sum. Book titles may be too open-ended, but I was dealing with domain-specific lingo. For example, it could be used for customer email routing for specialized services or products. It will require human inspection and tuning to get decent results.

<comment><USER2> An adjustment to the above (word, category, weight):

Java | Programming | 2

Java | Drinks | 2

Java | Islands | 2</comment></comment>


Who Was the Real Lorax? Seeking the Inspiration for Dr. Seuss - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/23/science/lorax-dr-seuss-environment.html <comment><USER2> It so happens that we've already had a Lorax discussion! [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17602581](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17602581)</comment>


Show HN : Chinese Learning Flashcard App - <AUTHOR> http://zw4.paingthet.com <comment><AUTHOR> Made an ANKI like Flashcard App for studying Chinese Characters (for beginner level) over two years.</comment>


Ask HN: Steal my Ideas (or help me) - <AUTHOR>

Hello HN,
    I've been kicking around a couple of ideas for startups that I'd like to share with you. I'm having trouble deciding which one I like best. PG and others speak about changing ideas often in a Startup, so you shouldn't worry too much about the initial idea. Companies like Paypal are often referred to. However, I see this more as evolution rather than full out change. It is much harder to completely shift focus. Justin.tv did it, but it took them more than a year to go from one idea from the next. I'd like to avoid this if possible. First, I'll probably run out of money. Second, the opportunity cost is rather large. With that in mind, here are some idea's I've been thinking about. Let me know what you think of them. Please start building them if you like, or let me know if you'd like to try and work together on any of them.
<comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-
1) Online golf tee time systems that courses use suck!  They are so bad that calling to get tee times is still the default method. The vast majority of existing software is practically unusable. It should not be hard to build software that kills everyone else. Features include:
-- Support all browsers (many do not)
-- Fix the broken login system. Most software requires you to login. No one can remember there login because the actual software is not the brand the consumer remembers, it's the golf course. So I end up making a new account every time I want to get a tee time. That sucks, I usually stop at this point. Instead use open-id
-- All existing software uses the same broken UI. Currently there is a date picker and you enter the date and time you are interested in. This makes sense for airlines, but golf courses typical only let you get tee times 10-14 days in advance. I would rather see each day lined up, with the weather, price, and how busy the course was included. Clicking a day would show the day's list of all tee times. This would allow you to do things like find the least busy time, or find two tee-times back to back.
-- Edit reservations. Most existing software makes you go through the whole account hassle, then you can't even make changes to your reservation without calling.
--The killer feature, beyond building a usable website, would be a mobile website version and native mobile applications.
I'd charge per transaction. I like this product because the software is directly responsible for revenue (or making stuff golf courses want). Also golf courses want to minimize the time they are spending answering the phone.
</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-
2) Mobile applications for students to get info about their colleges. This already exists for ~10 schools and the company who built these was actually just bought by Blackboard. Nonetheless, I think there is a lot of space in this market.  In 5 years, students will be getting this info in a better format than they are now. Features would include:
-- News
-- Athletic Events
-- Interactive directory, with one touch calling/emailing
-- Calendar of events
-- Pushing emergency security notifications
-- Big CALL SECURITY button, since most students do not have security's phone number in their phone
-- Dining Menus
-- Interactive Map of campus/local attractions
-- Possibly some social networking thing where students could post where they are hanging out.
To start, I've tried to only include features that wouldn't require integrating into a schools internal network. This would keep the friction of installation much lower. At some point it would probably be worth looking into integrating though. I'd focus specifically on smaller schools that don't have the IT infrastructure to build anything like this. High Schools could also be targeted.
As a student I was always running around, and I would have loved to be able to get this information easily. As it was, loading up the website and navigating just takes too long.  Also, I think schools are very interested in security these days, so focusing on fleshing out new ideas surrounding that would be important. Also, Students are early adopters with new tech.
</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-
3) Completely Digital Tickets. This idea actually came out of #2 as I was thinking about possible features. At school, I hated having to go to the student union between 10 am and 12 am with 7.50 in cash to buy a ticket to whatever event.  The basic usage would be as follows:
-- Event coordinator sets up event tickets on a website.  Coordinator chooses how many tickets, price, etc.
-- Student gets push notification on their phone that tickets for event are on sale.
-- Student buys ticket using ITunes account or similarly easy payment option. The goal is to be frictionless.
-- Student goes to event with his/her phone and redeems ticket in one of four ways. The different ways differ in security, but also in infrastructure needs. Event coordinators could choose which option they prefer.
a) student shows flashing  ticket on phone. This could obviously be counterfeited, but with sufficient animation could possibly work for small events. It would still be harder than counterfeiting most paper tickets used.
b) student presses a button which tells a server to send ticket redeemer a text msg with the name of the student and how many tickets he had.  The txt would always come from my phone number, so txt spoofing would be required for counterfeiting. From some basic research txt spoofing looks tough in the US.
c) Mimic Bump Technologies, student bumps phone with ticket redeemer. This requires all ticket redeemers to have "smart" phones, but would be the most secure.
d) display a bar code that could be scanned. This would require barcode scanners as well as an API to exchange bar code info with the event coordinator.
</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-
4) Real Time Shopping. This is my least formulated idea, so bear with me a bit. Basically, I think there are a certain class of transactions that could be possible, but aren't yet.  These transactions are extremely time sensitive. They occur when the buyer is interested in getting good deals more than getting the product at an exact time. I was thinking about what happens to pizza's that are ordered, but never claimed or can't be delivered. Obviously, the pizza places would like to sell this pizza, but they have a very limited time before it goes bad.  I think there are a lot of potential industries where this could work,  but the three that stick out are the food industry, ticket industry, and coupon/deals from consumer companies.
I think it is just becoming possible to start trying to solve this problem. Consumers need to be able to subscribe to different types of products in geographic areas they choose.  Subscribing could be done in a variety of ways including twitter, mobile app, txt msg. The actual transaction mechanism may need to be specific to different products.
</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-
Each Idea gets progressively less conservative and more "futuristic". I'm having trouble deciding whether it's worth trying to solve one of the harder problems or going for the relatively more concrete ideas. Any thoughts or suggestions would be great! </comment><comment><USER2> I have an idea that's related to (4) - _actual_ last minute flight deals.

You go to the airport you want to travel from, and go to a "last minute" lounge, preferably behind security. Then, every time a flight is about to leave that has empty seats, the seats appear in an auction (available on smartphone devices or via wifi in the lounge) that will last maybe 10 minutes. The winner gets a digital boarding pass and is required to report to the gate within 10 minutes, or the flight is lost. The idea is that almost any revenue from an otherwise empty seat goes directly in the contribution margin.

There are any number of problems, especially getting not-yet-travellers through security, as well as baggage, but the essense of selling a very-soon expiring product is the same.

<comment> s-phi-nl This reminds me of rush tickets <http://www.kimmelcenter.org/planning/tickets.php>

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> One More Idea: A super simple dating mobile app. Your profile consists of a picture of yourself and the question , "Ask me about....?", filled in. There would be a list of bars organized by cities and people could choose to share which bar they were at. Potential suitors could browse all the singles at a bar and decide which person to talk to (in real life).

The goal is to solve the awkwardness of cold openings at a bar. It's much easier if you can use something as a conversation starter. Also, one of the problems I see with online dating is the stigma attached to it. Hopefully, since this app is to be used in aiding real life dating, the stigma will not be there.

<comment><USER3> Chicken and egg, but kinda neat.

Screw the whole bar scene though and just make it "geo-aware". You pre-define picks and as you travel throughout town, it let's you know when one of those picks is close by.

<comment><USER4> I disagree. People go to the bar when they're ready to socialize and meet people, and they'll value something that makes that easier. Making it more geo-aware makes people have to decide which parts of their day they want to be interruptible, and I think makes the app more intimidating.

I like the bar tie-in, it provides a pleasant addition to something people are already doing.

<comment><USER3> Well, like every other time you'd like to opt out of social contact, I'd just assume there was an "off" button.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The golf one sounds easy, but most of those web sites are directly integrated with POS systems. A lot of courses buy it all together as a package. Plus the biggest golf course management software vendor in my area aggregates all the golf courses they serve into a single web site, so you only have one account.

Also, as much as I love Open ID, trying to get your average Joe Schmoe golfer to use it is not going to work.

<comment><USER6> The easiest way for people to remember their logins for sites is not to USE logins. Use EMAIL ADDRESSES instead. Then, if they forget their login, they just enter their email address and it auto-generates a "reset password" link.

Open ID is cool and all, but it's nowhere near frictionless enough for average people yet.

<comment><USER7> Words cannot express how much I agree with this advice for non-technical people. My users love it because its easy. (Really. They send letters.)

I love it because failed logins are minimal and requests to reset password even smaller. (Incidentally, rather than "reset password", I give people auto- login links which are guaranteed to be usable for at least one day, and then pop up a message on login telling them how to change their password. This eliminates any needless copy/pasting and supports my ~10 users who prefer to ALWAYS log in via the forgotten password feature. Hey, two of them paid money, I'm not about to complain.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I used to work for a online golf tee time company, and you're absolutely correct in saying that building a better online reservation system wouldn't be that hard (the bar is pretty low). I'm not sure about what smaller providers give the course, or how they charge, but the bigger ones also:

1) Provide a 24-hour call center, so no one at the golf course is answering reservation calls much anyway.

2) Provide POS systems, which means that almost all revenue is reportable through one interface.

3) Have rewards and tournament management built in. And also something to report scores to golf associations.

And instead of being paid in totally in cash, they're also paid in tee times, which the company resells itself.

But those are the big guys. I'm sure there are plenty of courses using simple webapps to manage tee times that are horrible. It'd be a good thing to shake that up.

<comment><USER9> Don't let the 24/7 call center scare you. There are guys out there who run generic call centers that will set up a low-volume 24/7 service for cheap. real cheap...

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> We've been seeing a lot of these idea threads lately. Maybe someone should make an "I have an idea" site :D

It would be nice to have a page per idea, plus commenting, and maybe some sections for research (other competitors in the area, probable market sizes, etc).

If I had unlimited funds, I always thought it would be cool to start a company that did nothing but churn out little ideas. People could put idea synopses on a big board on one wall and either grab the idea off the wall when they wanted to build it, or write their name under it to let people know they were working on it. Then other people who were also interested in the idea could collaborate. Or compete, whatever.

<comment><USER11> Have a look at <http://www.halfbakery.com/> \- it's pretty much exactly what you describe in terms of an ideas site.

Also, there are companies which churn out little ideas - my girlfriend works for one. It's pitched as an innovation consultancy, aimed at opening up new markets for companies big enough to afford their fees. Not sure if that's exactly what you were talking about, but maybe kind of similar?

<comment><USER10> I'd always thought halfbakery was mostly use for joke ideas; but looking at it again makes me think perhaps it is being used more seriously than I thought.

I want to go work where your girlfriend works, it sounds like fun (and yes, that's roughly what I was talking about :D )

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Some years back I was occasionally involved with the OTA (Open Travel alliance), and ended up attending a meeting to discuss specs. Along with a largely enterprisey view of XML, I was amazed by the amount of attention given to defining markup to handle golf tee times.

I'd worked in hotels for many years by then, but never at a resort; I first thought they were talking about _tea_ times, which seemed just plain bizarre. But no more bizarre than their love for W3C Schemas.

</comment><comment><USER13> Idea time!

Another one: A mobile geo-aware "hot-or-not" site/app for fashionistas:

1\. go to shop x 2\. grab the prettiest/craziest/sexiest clothes you can find 3\. get into a booth 4\. take a phonecam pic of self thru the mirror 5\. upload and show to online crowd 6\. let the voting commence 7\. instant feedback for user (vanity)

I think there's a lot of potential in this for marketeers.

What do you think, is this idea hot or not?

<comment><USER14> Good idea, doesn't need to be geo-aware.

Getting strangers to rate each other's outfits in real time would be fun.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> i like the golf course concept. drop me an email, i'd be willing to give it a shot

<comment><USER16> This would be great, but keep in mind that this project is more about sales and execution than software development if it's going to be used anywhere.

No rock stars required to develop this system, but you'll need a crack-sales- team.

This sort of thing may still feel like rocket science to many of your pro-shop guys taking tee times over the phone - and they are probably the gate keepers when it comes to sales and implementation.

<comment><USER15> thats one of the reasons why i like it and wouldn't mind working on it :) its not a complex problem to solve or a timesink project, and that fits appropriately into the bit of free time i have.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The shopping thing seems ripe for fraud. Put in a fake order, get a discount.

<comment><USER18> I agree with this, but it would be nice to hear some opinions on how fraud could be limited as well. Reason being that I like this idea and would love to see other people's take on it.

I used to manage a pizza shop and we would run into issues from time to time where we would have extra food. Occassionally it was due to fake orders, but more often it was due to mix ups in the prep area where our cooks would forget to take down a ticket after putting a pie in the oven and the next cook would make it again. If we didn't eat it ourselves, we would call up the local bars, fire stations, police stations, repeat customers or anyone who had a large order in the past and offer it to them at a substantial discount or free. We generated a lot of repeat business that way. We were a small, horribly unorganized shop, so I don't how much that would spill over into the average food business - but it does happen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm working on idea #2 along with other location aware services for mobile browsers. The domain I've picked up so far is <http://this.st> (standing for This Street); figured it'd be easy to type on a phone. One of the services is going to cater to schools, starting with mine (University of Waterloo). MIT has done a great job with m.mit.edu and it will be a good benchmark.

Other services for densly located areas will be in places like malls and theatres.

</comment><comment><USER6> Problem you'll run into with scanning bar codes displayed on mobile phones - it won't work. In general, barcode scanners can't scan digital screens for barcodes.

<comment><USER20> Unless they don't use typical barcode scanners. I'm thinking photo recognition scanners - they point the camera on their smartphone at the screen of the barcode to be scanned; the app sends the decoded data to the server and gets a success or denied along with ticketholder info (name, etc)....

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Idea #2 is definitely already being explored. I know of a couple CS students at Ohio State who are trying to build similar features for the university online and on mobile phones.

</comment><comment><USER22> real time shopping is interesting</comment>